AFP, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Sept 25, 2009 – Japan, one of few major developed nations maintaining warm ties with Iran, on Friday joined the world’s condemnation of Tehran’s construction of another uranium enrichment plant.
’It is regrettable to know that Iran was newly building a uranium enrichment facility without reporting it,’ Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada said in a statement during the Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh.
’Iran must take all necessary measures to gain the trust of international community, including implementation of a series of UN Security Council resolutions,’ Okada said.
Okada added that Iran should ’respond positively and make concrete progress in resolving the issue’ during talks in Geneva next week between Tehran and six major powers — Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.
Earlier, the leaders of Britain, France and the United States used the backdrop of a Group of 20 summit to announce that Iran had admitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency it had secretly built its second nuclear enrichment plant.
In a rare break with the United States, its main ally, Japan has maintained commercial and political ties with Iran both before and after the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Okada met on Tuesday in New York with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, who reiterated Tehran’s refusal to negotiate away its nuclear program.